


good/great/better

by remain__nameless



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: (It's mild and a bit vague but watch out, Communicating With Your Significant Other Is A Requirement For A Healthy Relationship, Communication, Established Relationship, Extremis Isn't Very Important (but it is mentioned), Extremis Pepper Potts, F/M, Fixing The Mcu Because Fuck That Shit™, How Do I Tag, Insecure Tony Stark, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Pepper Potts Feels, Pepper Potts Needs a Hug, Post-Iron Man 3, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Has Trust Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, better safe than sorry)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 03:55:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19455829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/remain__nameless/pseuds/remain__nameless
Summary: Tony and Peppertalk.(And the universe starts going in a different direction.)





	good/great/better

**Author's Note:**

> I love them so much shskbskdhdjdk

“Tony.”

“Pep!” Tony yelps in surprise. “I swear I drank a smoothie every four hours like I promised.”

She furrows her brows at him, and he’s having a bit of trouble reading her expression, because he’s channeling all of his energy into figuring out Extremis and the surgery to get the act reactor out, so his people skills are worse than usual.

He’s trying to be healthy, eating regularly—which is going surprisingly well—, and trying to keep a reasonable sleep schedule—which is going unsurprisingly unwell. But he’s trying. He hasn’t been able to properly sleep, though. He hasn’t slept in the same bed as Pepper ever since that fateful night before the Mandarin attacked Malibu, too afraid of having a nightmare and hurting her again. There is no suit to react to his thoughts anymore, but he can’t bring himself to even enter the goddamn bedroom.

Tony does try to sleep, he goes to one of the Stark Mansion’s empty guest rooms and lays there for all four hours they agreed on, but he doesn’t sleep. He has nightmare after nightmare, and ends up just giving up and staring at the ceiling until Jarvis tells him it is time to get up.

The eating thing is going much better. Every four hours Jarvis will remind him to get out of the workshop and make himself a snack, or Dummy will whirl up to him holding a smoothie in his shiny new replaced claw, after his previous one was too damages from the fall and being underwater for so long.

(All three of his bots got upgrades and, among other things, are now blessedly waterproof, so there’s that. He should’ve made them waterproof ages ago, actually.)

Pepper’s face clears from the mysterious emotion Tony couldn’t place, and she smiles slightly at him. “I know, honey,” she assures, walking closer and running a hand through his hair. He leans into the touch automatically, and when he realizes what he is doing, his immediate reaction is to push her away, but he viciously squashed that particular moment of self-sabotage. (He’s more self-aware, too. Pepper would be proud.) “I was here, remember? I had been coming back from a meeting at the Tower. That was two and a half hours ago.”

Oh. Had he really forgotten that? Shit. “Right, I— I remember that now. Sorry.”

“It’s alright.” She kissed the top of his head and moves away. “Can we talk upstairs, Tony? Please?”

That does not sound good. That sounds very bad, actually.

Before his brain could start an in depth analysis of every single one of his interactions with Pepper to figure out what he had done wrong, she says: “Don’t listen to your brain right now Tony, I promise I’m not mad about anything.”

“I think this is the first time I was ever told not to listen to my brain, in like, ever,” he tells her as he gestures for JARVIS to turn off the projections.

“You are awfully good at pretending to not be an idiot, so I’m not surprised. But I know that that brilliant brain of yours is really stupid sometimes.”

“That’s an oxymoron, I think.” He’s standing in front of her now, and she leans in to give him a quick peck on the lips before taking his hand and leading him upstairs, all the way into the living room.

She’s wringing her hands in a gesture of nervousness that’s very unlike Pepper. She’s always very put together, very controlled, she never shows a negative emotion through something’s as transparent as body language. Being transparent is bad in their line of business, and Pepper is the best there is. Not even in the safety of their home she allows herself to drop all of her masks. Maybe for a few seconds, at most.

Pepper shows her emotions through pursed lips, furrowed brows and bright eyes. She trained herself out of biting her lips and her nails within the first year of her employment as his assistant. What could possibly shake her so badly it would leak through the few cracks in her mask?

Is it true nervousness, or a deliberate show of vulnerability?

Okay, no, fuck that train of thought. He’s not going to let his trust issues get in the way of his relationship. They already have plenty of problems, thanks.

Besides, if Pepper wanted to screw him over she could’ve done it ages ago, when he was drunk/high/sleep deprived 90% of the time and signed whatever paper she put in front of him.

Pepper isn’t trying to manipulate him, besides maybe into living healthily and not killing himself. She’s _Pepper_. She doesn’t even need to, he’d take over the world and hand it to her on a silver platter if she asked.

(He still can’t read her face. Why can’t he read her face?)

She curls up at the corner of the couch, and he finally realizes she’s wearing one of his T-shirts. He sits down in an armchair in front of her, not feeling confident enough on the situation to sit closer to her on the couch.

“I started going to therapy,” she confesses, “like I probably should’ve started going in 2008, or maybe before that, I don’t even know… And it’s been helping me realize some things. And I wanted to ask you something.”

Therapy.

… Okay?

“I wanted you to start talking to a therapist too, _but_ ,” she stresses when he opens his mouth to vehemently say _no, absolutely not_ , “I know you won’t, so I want you to start talking to _me_ , at least. It doesn’t even have to be anything big, just… _please_ Tony.”

“… What?” He was probably gaping at her, but seriously, _what?_ Someone wants him to _talk_? Like, someone actually wants to hear whatever he feels like saying? What? Why? “I— I don’t—I’m sorry? I don’t think I understand what you mean, honey.”

There’s a reason talking is his go-to technique when he wants to annoy someone. No one likes to hear him talk.

(Only maybe fellow scientists, when he is talking about something relevant, like during a convention or whatever. Maybe.)

Pepper took a deep breath and looked at him. “You never talk to me, Tony, not about your nightmares, not about your suits, not about… I don’t know, a new StarkPhone, what Dummy broke today, or what you had for breakfast. Hell, you _barely_ even look at me when I go down to the workshop. We don’t have meals together, we don’t sleep on the same bed. We don’t even sleep on the same _floor_ , actually.”

Her voice got progressively more choked up as she talked and her eyes are shiny with unshed tears. Fuck, Tony is ruining his relationship with Pepper too, because he has to ruin every good thing in his life, apparently.

“I miss you,” she whispers finally and turns her head away, ginger hair falling from her low ponytail and obscuring her face.

Fuck, and what is he supposed to even say? _Sorry for being an awful boyfriend, I totally don’t deserve you, thank you for putting up with my bullshit. I love you, please don’t leave me._

Yeah, right.

Tony stutters out an incoherent jumble of words before grunting in frustration and giving up. He’s complete shit at expressing himself on a good day (and he means actually expressing himself, not spitting out small tidbits of information covered in seven layers of sarcasm and five layers of pure bullshit, as he usually does. He means real communication), and this was definitely _not_ a good day. Instead of making an even bigger fool of himself, Tony gets up from his chair and sits down besides her on the couch.

(Physical comfort isn’t his forte either, but hugs are infinitely easier than words.)

He raises her head and gently holds her face, thanking every deity he can think of that she isn’t crying, because he can’t handle a crying Pepper. He gives her a quiet kiss just on the corner of her mouth he hopes is reassuring, and promises, “I’ll try to do better. Starting now.”

Is it a shitty promise? Maybe. But he intends to keep it, because he can’t lose her, not now and not ever.

She searches his face and seems to find what she was looking for, because she smiles—slightly, very _very_ slightly—and tugs him closer him, murmuring, “That’s all I ask”. They shift on the couch to a more comfortable position, and lay there for a while, not saying anything but enjoying each other’s presence.

(They are cuddling, they absolutely are cuddling. How long has it been since they cuddled? Jesus…)

Tony is then struck by how much he misses this, missed the warmth of Pepper’s body laying next to him, the steady rise and fall of her chest, the rhythmic beat of her heart. His throat tightens and he swallows the tears threatening to come.

(She feels warm, warmer than a normal, healthy human should feel like, and it reminds him that Extremis is still running through her veins, and he has no way to predict when it will overload and vaporize everything around it— _including Pepper._ )

“JARVIS,” he breaks the silence and promptly ignores the hoarseness of his voice. “Can you order us some pizza? The usual ones. And play a movie too.”

“Right away, Sir,” the British voice of his youngest ~~child~~ AI answers. “What movie would you and Ms. Potts like to watch?”

“Mamma Mia,” Pepper answers immediately. In all the years they have known each other, Tony learned that Pepper watches musicals only when she is upset because they cheer her up, and she is probably very upset right now.

The TV slides up and turns, while the lights dim slowly.

“Thanks, J.”

“Thank you, JARVIS.”

“You’re welcome, Sir and Ma’am,” he says pleasantly.

After that, they stay quiet. Too emotionally exhausted to even attempt to talk to each other, and their only interruption is Dum-E carrying two pizza boxes.

Pepper falls asleep midway through the movie, and Tony finally sees how dark her under eyes are (he has really been such a shitty boyfriend, hasn’t he? Fuck). Tony doesn’t know when he falls asleep, but it’s not too long afterwards.

He’d like to say he didn’t have nightmares, but he did.

He still dreams of Afghanistan and of space, dreams of explosions, of pain in his chest, he dreams of not being able to breath because there is a cloth on his face, and then he was looking at the stars, and the yells in foreign languages blur together with the Chitauri’s screeches and his teammates are screaming too, and so is Pepper, and they are hurt, but he can’t do anything because someone is holding him down and they are cutting him open and there’s something inside his chest, but then someone is pulling it out, and there’s an explosion and he can’t breathe—

_Fuck._

He wakes up two times after what’s pretty much the same dream, a nonsensical compilation of all the main traumatic events of his life in no particular order. He is breathing heavily, shaking and disoriented, but Pepper’s quiet, reassuring voice, along with the steady rhythm of her heartbeat and deep exaggerated breaths help him gain control of his lungs and anchor himself in the present. Tony falls back asleep afterwards both times, feeling inexplicably—and irrationally—safe, despite everything.

(Normally, he wouldn’t bother. He would just go back down to the workshop and built something, or tinker with one of his cars. But if he tried to leave then Pepper would wake up, and he couldn’t bring himself to wake her up. And she would be sad again, and that’s just… not acceptable.)

It’s not a good night of sleep by anyone’s standards, but it feels like the best sleep he has had in years. He even managed eight hours, even if not eight consecutive hours. It’s good. It’s _great_.

( _And waking up to Pepper making blueberry pancakes, with socked feet sliding over the expensive floors and hair shining golden in the sunlight, smiling, bright-eyed and relaxed, that’s much, much_ _**better**_.)

**Author's Note:**

> this one im pretty sure ill expand into a series, but dont quote me on that lmao  
> and if i do expand it, it probably wont go the direction you think it will go  
> (or maybe it will, who knows? most certainly not _me_ )
> 
> i tried my very best to depict Tony and all his issues in what i felt was an accurate manner (if not wholly canon compliant, but who cares about canon right?) but if I made any glaring mistakes please correct me because i font have personal experience with panic attacks, much less to the extent tony did
> 
> also, im not a native english speaker and even though I triple checked everything (and put it through an app twice) there can still be errors, especially on idioms and expressions because I'm not so great at those, so if you find anything please warn me! 
> 
> please leave kudos and/or comment!  
> I you don't feel like using words leave an emoji  
> (im partial to hearts myself _*wink wink, nudge nudge*_ )  
> (a :) is fine too, its great)  
> (or a :( if that's how you feel)  
> (please)  
> (comments truly make my day)  
> (I need the validation)


End file.
